Found Object Show – Art Without Intent

An exhibition of found objects transcending their forms through time and circumstance.

FALL 2025

NYC

ART WITHOUT INTENT

A “found object” is something out of control.

Age vandalized its appearance. Circumstance hijacked its function. Obscurity overwrote its significance. Tearing through time, ravaged by the random, a found object breaks from the design of its creator to emerge today as something liberated from prescribed form and meaning.

Although it’s man-made, it is now alien to us. Although it’s here and now, it abides elsewhere in time and space. The found object is an illegible, unknowable thing, out of reach even when in hand.

Here we may find art without intent.

Transformed physically and contextually, a found object sometimes packs the same aesthetic and conceptual punch of conventional art. But without artistic motive nor objective meaning, it must lie in wait to ambush an imagination. As old as human consciousness itself, our reflexive appreciation of found objects is an artistic muscle latent within us all.

Art without intent ennobles the random, celebrates the anonymous, and embraces the subjective, empowering individuals to see art where they may least expect to find it.

THE SHOW

In its fourth year, the Found Object Show returns to NYC in the fall of 2025 (date to be announced). The unpredictable and diverse material is presented unaltered, each piece offered as-found by exhibitors. All objects will be available for sale.

General Admission $10. Purchase tickets online or at the door. Visitors of all ages are welcome (16 and under free). Advance tickets recommended.

Learn how to join us for a special show preview as a Friend of Found Object.

See a virtual tour of Found Object 2023. The show has since expanded to twice the size with the addition of many new exhibitors.

The project of nine art and antique dealers, the first Found Object Show opened in the spring of 2022 in the Lower East Side. With attendees ranging from diehard collectors to curious kids, the exhibition sought to inspire and mystify, with found object encounters as captured by The New Yorker, Antiques & The Arts, and show visitors. Although only on view in person for a few days, the 96 objects in the show are each featured in our exhibition book, Art Without Intent.

BOX: AN EXHIBITION

As part of the larger show, the Found Object features a special collective exhibition. The stuffed animal was our subject for 2023. In 2024, we think inside the box.

BOX: ART WITHOUT INTENT
AVAILABLE NOW

On view at the 2024 NYC show, the box exhibition also takes the form of a full-color, 110-page book featuring pieces contributed by Found Object exhibitors. Box: Art Without Intent is available for purchase now in our bookstore or to view online with an item price list here.

ART WITHOUT INTENT BOOK

Our debut exhibition book is now available for sale. Full-color, 150-page first editions of The Found Object Show: Art Without Intent are available for purchase for $48 including free US shipping (limited availability).

International buyers please contact us for shipping quote.

BOOKSTORE

Click here to purchase our exhibition books.

You may also view or download our online catalog and price list from the 2022 exhibition.

2024 EXHIBITORS

Found Object Show exhibitors each have a different approach to the concept of art without intent, collecting objects reflecting their own unique dialogues with the material past.